Sacha Baron Cohen at the Lobero

Paul Wellman Snags Impossible Photo of Borat

Hundreds lined up to see Sacha Baron Cohen
(pictured), aka Borat aka Ali G, on Friday at the
Lobero. The British comedian behind this year’s
mockumentary hit, Cohen is supposedly a tough guy to get to do
interviews, but SBIFF managed to get him. So popular was the event
that director Roger Durling assumed more than 300
people would be turned away. One such person getting the turn-away
treatment was The Indy‘s own photog Paul
Wellman, who was informed that Cohen would leave town if
he saw any photographers on site.

Wellman obliged, not wanting to endanger the event, even though
the law protects those who take photos of people from public
property. Around the end of the event, however, Wellman returned,
and found a sniper’s angle with which to capture this shot. The
real reason for Cohen’s stuffiness was likely the fact that
Fox was taping the event to be part of the
DVD release of Borat.

As for the event itself, Indy arts editor
Charles Donelan reported that Cohen was funny,
though rather dismissive of many questions lobbed by interviewer
Leonard Maltin. Cohen, sporting a bear-decorated baseball
cap, even went so far as to open the questions to the
audience, which obliged with glee. More to come from inside.